A Positive October - Day 18

Patrick Wisdom

If I can keep it up all month, 31 days of positive posts! There's going to be enough negativity going around with the Cardinals not in the post-season.

Day 18

I believe it was our own prospect hound Kyle Reis who said or wrote (and of course I can't find proof now) that Patrick Wisdom is an absolute leader on the baseball field. The poor guy had an OPS over right around .700 over his first 2,000 plate appearances spanning 5 years and low A through AAA after the 2016 season. He was basically seen to be somewhat done as a minor league prospect at just age 24.

Then, this leader, decided he needed to change something. A guy who had always been below league average age, played a solid defense at third base, and was coming off of an injury riddled season decided that he needed to make a change. He changed his swing in an attempt to revitalize his career. It was probably a really good move. He was a guy who had averaged 29 doubles, 5 triples, and 16 homers per season over 5 seasons in the minors. That's not corner infielder production.

He made a change to his swing prior to the 2017 season and look what has happened since. In the minors, all at the highest level (AAA), Wisdom has taken 927 plate appearances. Per 600 PA, his numbers have been 32 doubles, 1 triples, and 30 homers. He had extra base hits at a rate 26% higher than he did prior to that in his age 25-26 seasons. In the 2017 season, he was the on-field leader of the AAA Memphis Redbirds that won the PCL. In the midst of that, he was available for any team to take in the Rule 5 draft after the 2017 season. He could have been on any other team's MLB roster this year for a measly price. NOBODY took him. He led Memphis to another early start that helped them reach their second PCL title in a row (although Wisdom had graduated to STL by then).

In St. Louis this year, Wisdom only got 58 plate appearances in 32 games. Wisdom hit .260/.362/.520/.882 in those 58 plate appearances. While he struck out 19 times (32.8%), his walk rate was very good (10.3%) and he had extra base hits in almost 40% of his hits, including 4 homers in <60 times to the plate! He made a fantastic first impression.

I don't know if he'll get a chance for a second impression or not with the Cardinals - or even with another MLB team. His cup o' joe this year was a bright spot for the Cardinals, however.